HK-Based Tech Startup PressLogic Raises $10M USD Series A+ Funding

The round was closed by Meitu, Inc. (SEHK:1357), China’s leading image processing and social sharing platform

Funds will be used to expand overseas female lifestyle content and user-generated content (UGC) markets, optimize its self-developed data-driven analytics software, as well as to exploit the e-commerce sector harnessing its own precise traffic and data

HONG KONG, Nov. 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — PressLogic, a HK-based technology start-up, today announced it has raised Series A+ funding of 10 million USD from Meitu, Inc. (SEHK.1357), China’s leading image processing and social sharing platform.

The funding will allow PressLogic to build the female lifestyle content and the UGC community in different world-class cities, accelerate the growth of its audiences and improve its services and self-developed data-driven analytics technology to resonate with its company’s motto of "continually evolving". It shall also expand into the e-commerce sector harnessing its own precise traffic and data.

The Background Story

None was willing to buy the unique data-driven analytic service invented by PressLogic for optimizing ROI performances in various social media about two years ago. In order to show its powers, two young founders of PressLogic then decided to step into the digital media and content marketing businesses in Hong Kong with exceptional coverage in lifestyle contents, covering Female Beauty & Fashion, Traveling and Lifestyle, Business & Finance, Men Lifestyle, Parenting, Cooking, Cats and Korean Star Interest. Its initial product was simple: PressLogic builds highly effective marketing networks and community in various audiences vertically to deliver client’s messages to their favourable audiences.

Use of Funding

"PressLogic that we see and experience today has only reflected part of our future businesses. We are very excited with the Series A+ investment, as it allows us to expand massively globally and grow to become the largest female lifestyle digital media & community player in Asia Pacific.

"In addition, with the raise in the capital from Meitu, we will launch our first UGC mobile app ‘GirlStyle’ and website under GirlStyle.com branding in Hong Kong plus 5 other places in Taiwan, Singapore, India, Korea, and Malaysia by the end of 2018. This user-generated content platform will enable users to post contents and comments within the female community. It empowers female to record every day of their life and everyone can share their feelings and comments in the same community," said Ryan Cheung, PressLogic’s founder and Chief Executive Officer.

According to Alexa, a member of Amazon that measures website popularity, PressLogic.com was currently ranked 23 in Hong Kong. Approximately 75% of its visitors are 18-34 years old. PressLogic has risen to become the leading lifestyle digital media for Millennials in Hong Kong. (Source from Facebook & Google) Accumulating almost 8 million Facebook & Instagram fans and followers (with or without carrying PressLogic and GirlStyle branding across regions) and over 700 million monthly content impressions on its social media presences & websites, PressLogic not only showed its capabilities and effectiveness, its unprecedented fast-growing record also attracted the market’s attention and content marketing opportunities.

PressLogic’s proprietary methodology of studying social media market and algorithms of predicting viral topics have proven to be working very well. Not only has it reached a wide-ranging and loyal audience, but it has also built strong business fundamentals with significant growth in revenue and profit with strong partnerships with brands. PressLogic has been committed to delivering marketing value to its branded content partner by its data-driven publishing and community management. With the fresh funding from Meitu, PressLogic will continue to evolve and produce more high quality original contents and create more impactful branded contents with partners.

MediaLens — Data-driven analytics software

About 80% traffic of PressLogic.com is from mobile, and the percentage is still growing. Across its social media channels and website, PressLogic is generating over 700 million monthly content impressions.

MediaLens, the self-developed data-driven analytics software combined with machine learning capabilities for optimizing ROI performances in various social media. It sources popular feeds, news, comments and hot topics from the internet 24/7. By analysing popular topics in each interest community, the system has the ability to suggest specific content that are likely to go viral for the specific interest community. It reinforces itself recursively from the content published, as well as facilitates the creative process to optimize results. Backed up by in-house editorial and creative experts, PressLogic keeps delivering high-quality content.

PressLogic revealed that, in the future, its data-driven analytics system would be opened up to all other social media operators including marketers and influencers to broaden the company’s revenue source, assisting them to harness the data insight for better content analysis so as to improve the overall ROI on contenting. Meanwhile, PressLogic would like to enhance the data collections and foster the system learning predictive power on content virality.

Next Stage

Moving forward, PressLogic will continue to upgrade its core technology — MediaLens through data collections and content optimization. This will be the foundation to build the UGC platform and grow the effective female community in different places. By leveraging its precise traffic and data, PressLogic will extend its business into the e-commerce frontier, achieving its motto of "continually evolving".

With over 140 team members worldwide, PressLogic now operates MediaLens (analytics technology), GirlStyle (UGC community), and Digital Media & Content Marketing in several major Asian places including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Korea and Malaysia.

Founders

Founders of PressLogic, Ryan Cheung as CEO (Left in the photo) and Edward Chow as CTO.

Ryan Cheung as CEO and Edward Chow as CTO, founders of PressLogic, were born in 1988 in Hong Kong. Both of them were graduated from the University of Hong Kong in different streams.

Ryan has graduated with a degree in BBA (Accounting and Finance), worked in various investment bank’s Equity Markets and Commodities Division while responsible for the sales and structuring of derivatives and structured products. At the age of 26, he joined Leonteq Securities AG (formerly EFG Bank Financial Products) as Director in Asia, responsible for structured solutions business and expanding its Asia franchise. Leonteq is a leading and disruptive expert for structured investment products supported by its market-leading technology platform, listed in SIX Swiss Exchange.

Edward has graduated with a degree in BBA (Information System), worked in Deloitte and various IT consulting firms. He was responsible for large amount of system implementation and auditing tasks for clients including HK Government and traditional banks. He has been a Certified Information Systems Auditor since 2013.

About PressLogic

PressLogic, a technology start-up company based in Hong Kong, was established in 2016 and started from MediaLens, its self-developed data-driven analytics system combined with machine learning capabilities for optimising ROI performances in various social media, that uses data to build highly effective media networks in the digital world. Its unprecedented fast-growing record on social media publishing business, accumulating almost 8 million Facebook & Instagram fans and followers, as well as over 700 million monthly content impressions on its social media accounts & websites, attracted the market’s attention. In 2018, PressLogic has successfully raised its Series A+ funding of USD 10 million from Meitu (SEHK:1357), China’s leading image processing and social sharing platform.

Established in October 2008, Meitu, Inc. is China’s leading AI-driven photo/video processing and sharing platform. With a mission "to inspire more people to express their beauty", the company has developed a rich portfolio of software and smart products based on the concept of beauty, including but not limited to the Meitu app (social network), BeautyCam (photo editing & selfie camera app), Meipai (pan-knowledge short video platform), MeituBeauty (e-commerce platform) and Meitu Smartphones. On 15 December 2016, Meitu, Inc. was listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (stock code: 1357).